Rapid business growth may be the key to finally unionizing shipbuilding workers in Mobile, Ala., where an Australia-based defense contractor has successfully fought union organizing for more than a decade.
That’s the estimation of Ron Ault, President of the AFL-CIO’S Metal Trades Department (MTD), an umbrella group for unions representing boilermakers, machinists, pipefitters, and other skilled shipbuilding workers from around the country. “There is a boom in Gulf Coast shipyards now,” Ault says, and high demand for skilled workers may give unions a foothold. Gulf shipyards are recruiting workers from all parts of the country, including heavily unionized areas, and the presence of this whole new generation of workers is a real opportunity for labor organizing, according to Ault. Click here for more of the story from In These Times reporter Bruce Vail.
Related News
- Tom Wiant moves from International rep. to assistant to the general president
- SMART TD, TTD Set For Victory Over Carriers On Train Length Data Collection
- BE4ALL Canadian Labour Spotlight: Helen Jury Armstrong
- SMART-TD, RME members secure paid sick leave for rail workers at Union Pacific
- SMART-TD Leaders take to the UAW picket line at a Jeep plant in Toledo, OH.
- SMART statement on Inflation Reduction Act anniversary
- Minnesota SMART members win legislative victories across sheet metal and transportation
- SMART remembers and honors all who have made the ultimate sacrifice
- SMART Women’s Committee welcomes new members
- SMART-TD announces a price reduction for the Discipline Income Protection Program (DIPP) going into effect on August 1, 2023